


Yellow

by jangmun



Category: X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Soulmate AU, eunsang wants quiet, junho is a softy, life gives him a boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25203289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jangmun/pseuds/jangmun
Summary: Eunsang is weird, but Junho might be too.
Relationships: Cha Junho/Lee Eunsang
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Challenge #3 — Sound of Silence





	Yellow

Today, Eunsang’s earbuds are broken.

It’s just the left side, too, and if he bends the wire a certain way he can get sound out of it, but the frustration of the bus hitting bumps in the road and jerking the wire just enough that it cuts out again isn’t worth it. So Eunsang lets it hang there.

He hates bus rides. They’re too loud, too weird. People will stare at him when he takes too long to sit down. It’s not his fault he can see something they can’t. Soulmate creatures— or hallucinations, if you don’t believe in such a thing— they’re fickle, annoying, and Eunsang is unfortunate enough to see them.

He is probably one of the only few people who can, no thanks to his strange upbringing. His parents are researchers, specifically into the science and study of soulmates, and Eunsang, rather than being a son to them, became a sort of test subject. So, naturally, when he started talking about the creatures, his parents documented everything. Yet they wonder why he no longer talks to them.

Soulmate creatures are funny, too. Vividly colored and oddly designed, they come in a variety of animal forms, even the mythological or unknown. Eunsang sees them on buses the most, some lost from their human being dead, playing with other soulmate creatures on the bus, or just there to catch a ride back to their human. Strange, very strange.

They don’t make noise, either. Eunsang likes that they’re quiet, less harmful to his ears. They’re a good company, if he’s ever lonely.

  
  


Usually Eunsang can count the minutes to when he’s to arrive home, because the bus trip is so routine that there is almost never a break in it. Today there is a break, as the bus comes to a halt at a stop that Eunsang swears has never been there before. A young man steps on, pays for his ride, and sits directly behind Eunsang.

It’s funnier to him because the man hesitates for a moment, as if he can see the creature sitting in that seat, and then when he sits down he is careful to leave the second seat open. Eunsang wonders if maybe he can see the creatures. But that’s impossible, Eunsang is supposed to be the only person in this area who can.

Still, he can’t deny that it’s an odd behavior, even to him. Eunsang tears his eyes away, restarting his countdown to his bus stop, and gets off without another thought of the man.

  
  


He comes to learn that his name is Junho, he’s a med student at some university in the city, and he’s in the nicer neighborhood just fifteen minutes from Eunsang’s shitty one. He learns that he lives alone, that he’s never taken the bus before, and that his favorite color is blue. Funny.

Eunsang lets him talk the whole time, mostly because the conversation is unwanted, and he isn’t the type to tell strangers his whole life story.

Junho does see the creatures, and he’s surprised to find that his own soulmate creature is cat-like, with blue and yellow fur patterns, and skittish. When Eunsang asks about his own, Junho says he hasn’t seen it. That’s okay, Eunsang knows he doesn’t have one.

  
  


Eunsang’s parents call him three months later, declaring that they’ve found another breakthrough, that they might have solved Eunsang’s hallucinations. He doesn’t care, and hangs up the phone rather quickly.

The creatures are less vibrant than usual, Eunsang barely even notices them anymore. Junho says that happens sometimes and Eunsang is reluctant to believe him. But he doesn’t have any of his own explanations, so after a few days of continually dimming soulmate creatures, and a few more days spent with Junho, Eunsang decides to trust him.

  
  


Junho says he saw Eunsang’s soulmate creature a few nights ago, when the two were watching movies together and eating popcorn and pizza and chocolate candy and drinking soda. Eunsang brushes it aside, because he doesn’t want their date to be ruined by worrying about soulmates. Who ever said that they had to follow the rules in the first place?

Junho insists that it’s important that Eunsang listen to him. So in hesitation, Eunsang asks Junho to explain to him what Eunsang’s soulmate creature looks like. He tells him that it’s cat-like, with blue and yellow fur.

Eunsang decides his favorite color is yellow.

Something Eunsang had heard about but never expected is that soulmate creature sightings can go away. His parents once described it as a slow fade.

Eunsang thinks it’s true, because a few months into dating Junho, Eunsang finds that the creatures are no longer as vivid, that their colors blend into the background. Maybe it’s a good thing. Junho says it’s a good thing.

  
  


It’s a year later that Junho and Eunsang experience the same strange thing: the soulmate creatures disappear from their vision. Junho tells Eunsang that they’ve been disappearing for him too. He decides to believe him.

But today Eunsang wakes up beside Junho, just realizing that the cat-like soulmate creatures they share aren’t curled at the end of the bed. He spends the first five minutes waking up and searching the apartment for them, and he decides that they are definitely gone once he crawls back into bed, still too tired to be awake.

Junho wakes up some time later, experiencing the same thing that Eunsang does, and his optimism leads him to celebrate it. Eunsang smiles from his spot in bed, shaking his head as his boyfriend jumps around and squeals in delight.

Eunsang wonders what his parents would have to say. It haunts him for most of the day, pressured into thinking that by the creatures disappearing he somehow disappointed his parents. Junho tells him that his parents don’t matter, that they don’t need to know. Eunsang listens to him, relieved that by doing so he loses the thoughts in his mind.


End file.
